Too many of these grooves are efficient but forgettable, and her vocal contributions likewise somewhat generic.

I Am Not a Dog has its moments, but they are brief and virtually lost amid the more experimental forays.

Love is a pleasant although occasionally overly earnest capsule collection of pop sounds where Diamantis proves herself to be the master of the “brief pause... and gentle drop” technique. ... Her voice skitters across songs with a frostiness reminiscent of Madonna’s Ray of Light era, and sometimes it feels like a lecture being delivered into the mirror: everyone’s just like you, no one’s happy, enjoy your life.

“The Satellites” opens the album with tart trumpets over staccato guitars, “To Us All” closes it with an oceanic excursion. In between are liquid pools of guitar and chattering keyboards.

The results evoke the fellowship of the emotionally bruised in a variety of ways.

20 songs that alternate between good and dreary.

John Martyn's valedictory recordings have a suitably weary presence that makes even such legendary laidback soporificos as J J Cale and Leonard Cohen seem positively sprightly by comparison.

As usual with Sawhney, it's typically eclectic, and surprisingly effective.

There's plenty to enjoy.

Standouts include a heartbreaking cover of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and the haunting murmur of "More".

It lacks impetus, panache and compulsion, just for starters.

These tracks offer a similar union of the imaginative and the inspirational, with Lee Perry and The Orb's Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann making musical magic from the most minimal of resources.

Pleasant and pleasingly melodic, but lacking the risky edge that makes a band truly great, The Silver Seas are like the living equivalent of a guilty pleasure.

The found-sounds quickly become irritating--as too, unfortunately, does Wastberg’s wan falsetto, which imposes a mood of victimhood where uplift might be more appropriate. It’s rather sad, because there’s genuine invention in some of his J Dilla-style arrangement assemblages.

The limp, autotuned love song “Happy” and drearily positivist “Good Morning” are lazy nods to the mainstream, but elsewhere Wretch is better served by the dark sparkle of arrangements featuring grimy sub-bass synths and itchy electro beats tinted with eerie vocal samples, thumb-piano and synthetic pan-pipes.

By and large this is a welcome and judicious follow on from Red Flag; it very much feels like All Saints are back with aplomb.

No one will be celebrating Duck for breaking new ground, but long-term fans won’t much be complaining either.

Emotional echoes of this complicated public history reverberate through Jude’s solid collection of mature mid-tempo rockers and ballads. ... Lennon’s production is clean, steely and a little claustrophobic.

Mostly, though, this is music that keeps its head down. Martin accepts his loss too meekly to approach the anguish of a great break-up album.

Black Panties finds him getting back to his core business with rather less artistic ambition.

The cult-like enthusiasm of The Magnetic Zeros is best experienced live, where their massed forces translate into a somewhat muddy morass.

It's a soothing, chillsome experience, though some tracks do strangle themselves in repetitive accretions.

It's full of timid electropop anthems.

This album is more Pringles than caviar. But it’s comfortingly moreish. When it comes to the Jonas boys, it seems that once you pop, you can’t stop.

It doesn’t take many tracks to blunt the impact of Moby’s relentless goosestepping drum programmes and shouty slogans.

No Doubt makes only the most tentative divergences from previously tried and tested strategies, which gives Push and Shove a character that could be described as either dated or timeless.

She’s still in her prime, as you can tell when she delivers a knockout vocal on the guitar-backed ballad “Broken Like Me”. .... But for all her promises to show us the “real her”, it’s a struggle to see it in the slick and sexy production of tracks such as “Mad in Love” or “Rebound”.

This alliance with The Orb is positive for both parties, Perry providing a tighter rein on their tendency to meander, while they furnish him with a different terrain to his usual dub skanks.